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Diversity for the Sake of Diversity: a 14-year-old’s rant
November 3, 2013 — xanthippaHere is a most excellent rant by a 14-year-old of my acquaintance:
Diversity. It sounds pretty good in theory, right? Lots of cultures and ideas coming together to get the best out of all of them. However, due to each culture’s history, some jobs attract different classes of people more. Office jobs often attract lots of white people, mostly males, basketball has a lot of African-Americans, and so on. That’s ok. People can do what they want. However, some people decided that everyone needs to be so politically correct that they not only avoid using derogatory terms, but actually make sure that they get a certain amount of visible minorities in certain jobs.
Why? That makes about as much sense as going through each box of Smarties and making sure each has an equal number of each coloured Smarty. There’s so much political correctness going around that even if you meant no harm, if you accidentally say something someone somewhere might find offensive, you can get sued for thousands of dollars by people who aren’t even the offended party, and they don’t even give that money to those who are offended.
When you own a corporation, you need to make sure you have at least a certain number of visible minorities working for you, or else the PC police get all up in your jimmies. Let’s say you start a company with lots of computers involved. Let’s say when going through your applications, you hire the best people for the job, ignoring their race. Then when they show up for work, they’re all white males. You now need to look in the applications for the next best application of people who are also visible minorities, even skipping the application of a boring white male who is better qualified. All this so you don’t seem racist to the PC (Politically Correct) police. Do you see the problem? You need to hire people NOT by how qualified they are, but how qualified they are AND their race/gender. That is almost a textbook example of racism or sexism. You need to be a bigot to look like you’re not a bigot!
And this is no small issue; this is a huge problem. You don’t really hear people talking about this in public, and that is because they don’t want to be sued. This is holding back freedom of speech, while taking lots of time and money to ensure people follow regulations. Not many people even know that this is a problem.
So you see, diversity is not always so good. Especially when it’s enforced. In fact, it is counter-productive a lot of the time, and puts a huge metaphorical boulder on everyone’s back. Toss away the boulder, get a back massage, work on your posture, and choose your employees based on skill, not race or gender.
BlazingCatFur: University of Toronto hosting conference sponsored by Islamist Gulen Organization
October 28, 2013 — xanthippaNB: See the updates below, this gets much worse. This started out as a relatively routine post on Islamist infiltration of public institutions until a bit more digging uncovered just how insidious the rot is. Toronto Police Services Chief Bill Blair sits on the advisory board of the Gulen Movement’s Intercultural Dialogue Institute. The Founder of the Gulen Movement Fethullah Gülen is a rabid anti-Semite. The Ontario Government has gifted 500K of your money to help build this anti-semitic organization’s Ottawa headquarters and our Minister of Citizenship & Immigration is happy to break bread with them. Our political class is comprised of useful idiots.
***
U of T is playing host this week to a “Religions and Social Innovation Conference“. One of the events sponsors stands out, the Intercultural Dialogue Institute, this is the Canadian branch of the Gulen Movement, and bases itself on the teachings of the movement’s founder, Fethullah Gulen.
The Gulen movement has among it’s primary goals the Islamization of Turkey and the Turkish Islamization of the Muslim diaspora : “M. Hakan Yavuz, a Turkish professor at the University of Utah and astute observer of the Gülen movement, states that “its main goal has been the Islamization of Turkish society.” Bayram Balci, another Turkish scholar who has studied the Gülen schools, said, “Fethullah’s aim is the Islamization of Turkish nationality and the Turkification of Islam in foreign countries.”
Much more prominent in the US, the Gulen Movement has come under fire for its system of charter schools which have received federal funding to establish what are essentially Islamic madrassas: “Americans may not realize it yet, but Turkey’s regression from a secular democracy into an Islamic state may be based on an educational movement that has also taken root in America. Imam Fethullah Gülen and his Gülen Movement (GM) have had enormous influence in setting the increasingly Islamist agenda of Turkey’s ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP). Much of this is due to GM’s vast empire of media entities, financial institutions, banks and business organizations.”
More on the Gulen Movement: Protesters want Turkish Islamic cleric ousted – “The protesters repeated earlier accusations against Gülen, arguing that he is connected to the government now leading Turkey and is seeking to Islamicize the country. Speakers also discussed charter schools affiliated with the movement across the U.S. and said Gülen is using American tax money to spread his message.
Umit Dikkaya came from New York City and joined friends. She wore a shirt proclaiming that she is proud to be from Turkey. “We’re here to expose the reality about this Gülen movement,” she said.”
Fethullah Gülen’s Grand Ambition – Turkey’s Islamist Danger
Updates:
Fethullah Gülen and the Jews – Link
“Dani Rodrik and Pınar Doğan, two Harvard-based scholars, have uncovered some of Gülen’s writings on Jews which should give pause for thought about where the shadowy preacher truly stands. From their “Balyoz Davası ve Gerçekler” (“Sledgehammer Case and Facts”) blog:
Even though they have lived in exile here and there and have led an almost nomadic existence, Jews have been able to maintain their racial characteristics with almost no loss. Moreover, the Jewish tribe is very intelligent. This intelligent tribe has put forth many things throughout history in the name of science and thought. But these have always been offered in the form of poisoned honey and have been presented to the world as such. For instance, Karl Marx is a Jew; the communism he developed looks like a good alternative to capitalism at first sight, but in essence it is a deathly poison mixed in honey… Jews will maintain their existence until the apocalypse. And shortly before the apocalypse, their mission of acting as the coil spring for humanity’s progress will come to an end, and they will prepare their end with their own hands.Their incurable enmity to Islam and Muslims aside, these people, which look with scorn upon even their own prophets and killed many among them, will finally end up in the position of Nazis and will look for a place to hide in the four corners of the earth. Nevertheless, since dwelling on the true causes and motives related to this topic will both oppose the business of truth and result in raising undue passions, we shall let this pass for the moment. Yes, until Islam comes to be represented to the desired extent, it seems like luck will favor the Jews for some time still.
Even though they have lived in exile here and there and have led an almost nomadic existence, Jews have been able to maintain their racial characteristics with almost no loss. Moreover, the Jewish tribe is very intelligent. This intelligent tribe has put forth many things throughout history in the name of science and thought. But these have always been offered in the form of poisoned honey and have been presented to the world as such. For instance, Karl Marx is a Jew; the communism he developed looks like a good alternative to capitalism at first sight, but in essence it is a deathly poison mixed in honey… Jews will maintain their existence until the apocalypse. And shortly before the apocalypse, their mission of acting as the coil spring for humanity’s progress will come to an end, and they will prepare their end with their own hands.Their incurable enmity to Islam and Muslims aside, these people, which look with scorn upon even their own prophets and killed many among them, will finally end up in the position of Nazis and will look for a place to hide in the four corners of the earth. Nevertheless, since dwelling on the true causes and motives related to this topic will both oppose the business of truth and result in raising undue passions, we shall let this pass for the moment. Yes, until Islam comes to be represented to the desired extent, it seems like luck will favor the Jews for some time still.
Sadly Toronto Police Services Chief Bill Blair sits on the Advisory Board of the Gulen Movement’s Toronto Branch, the Intercultural Dialogue Institute. For the record here’s the Gulen Movement’s Canadian web site listing the offices of the Intercultural Dialogue Institute offices across Canada. This proves, once again, that our political class are know nothing useful idiots of the Islamists.
As always our politicians are quick to make Kissy Face with Islamists: Iftar with Hon. Chris Alexander, Minister of Citizenship and Immigration
On April 23rd, 2013 Honorable David C. Onley, the 28th Lieutenant Governor of Ontario hosted a reception in honour of the Intercultural Dialogue Institute (IDI)
Unbelievable: The Ontario Trillium Foundation contributed $500,000.00 of your tax dollars to the construction of the Gulen Movement’s Ottawa Offices!
The Intercultural Dialogue Institute building will be a reality by July 2013. The Institute will be a centre to foster cultural understanding and dialogue amongst ethnic groups by offering educational, social, and youth programs to people from diverse communities. It will provide essential services for newcomers to settle in Canadian society and move into the workforce.
The project will cost about three million dollars. Thanks to the Ontario Trillium Foundation for their contribution of $500,000 as the Community Capital Fund.
h/t JD
Fighting for Freedom of Speech
October 23, 2013 — xanthippaA young man I know well is taking a Civics class in High School. For his ‘Civics’ project on how to improve our society, he had chosen to seek to raise awareness of the importance of Freedom of Speech. He chose to do this in two ways:
1. Following the example of FIRE, he considered setting up a ‘Free Speech Wall’ at his school. He asked for and received a meeting with his Principal where he proposed the idea. Due to School Board constraints (High School kids are still minors), this was deemed not possible.
However, his Principal was very supportive of his overall goal and they did agree that a ‘Freedom of Speech Page’ in the school’s newsletter would be a good idea: all students would be encouraged to write why Freedom of Speech is important to them. Since this high school has students from very diverse backgrounds, it might help to be inclusive for students who have come to Canada recently from more oppressive countries to be encouraged to share their stories of what life without freedom of speech was like and why we, in Canada, must protect this most core of our civil liberties.
He is still negotiating with the teacher in charge of the school newsletter, but he has volunteered to do the work on it and is hopeful that this will become a reality.
2. Drafting and collecting signatures on a petition to ask our legislators to strengthen the legal protections on Freedom of Speech. He had sent me the petition and the accompanying letter: I have taken the names out of it and turned it into a template that each and every one of us can use, collect signatures on the petition and present our own MPs with the demand to strengthen or Free Speech protections!
The accompanying letter:
Petition to strengthen freedom of speech in our laws
To: ___________________________
Member of Parliament of Canada
Dear _________________________:
In the most recent Throne Speech, our Government stressed its committment to the protection of our core rights and fundamental freedoms. The most fundamental of these is the Freedom of Speech, without which no other right or freedom can be defended. There have been many attacks on freedom of speech as of recent, and despite it being the most crucial human right, many people see it as an optional bonus, despite how important it is.
Our Canadian laws are not in line with other democratic countries, like Australia and the United States of America, and make it very easy for unscrupulous people to abuse our laws to chill legitimate political debate. This type abuse was happening under ‘Section 13’ of the Human Rights Code, and you, our lawmakers, have listened to us, the citizens, and repealed that section. Thank you for that!However, our other laws are now being similarly abused and I would like you, and all our lawmakers, to take steps to pass legislation to strengthen our freedom of speech!
Sincerely yours,
The petition:
This is a petition to my Member of Parliament, Pierre Poilievre, to ask that our law-makers pass federal laws strenghtening protection of the freedom unpon all our civil liberties depend, the Freedom of Speech, from attacks by those wishing to silence political discourse, so that Canadians within all of Canada would have better protections under the law for our most fundamental freedom.
SIGNATURE NAME (Please Print) City, Postal Code
1. ______________________________ __________________________________ _________________________________
2. ______________________________ __________________________________ _________________________________
3. ______________________________ __________________________________ _________________________________
4. ______________________________ __________________________________ _________________________________
5. ______________________________ __________________________________ _________________________________
6. ______________________________ __________________________________ _________________________________
7. ______________________________ __________________________________ _________________________________
8. ______________________________ __________________________________ _________________________________
9. ______________________________ __________________________________ _________________________________
10. _____________________________ __________________________________ _________________________________
11. _____________________________ __________________________________ _________________________________
12. _____________________________ __________________________________ _________________________________
13. _____________________________ __________________________________ _________________________________
14. _____________________________ __________________________________ _________________________________
15. _____________________________ __________________________________ _________________________________
This is a petition to my Member of Parliament, Pierre Poilievre, to ask that our law-makers pass federal laws strenghtening protection of the most fundamental of all of our civil liberties, the Freedom of Speech, from attacks from all directions, so that Canadians within all of Canada would have equal protections under the law for our mos fundamental freedom.
SIGNATURE NAME (Please Print) City, Postal Code
16. _____________________________ __________________________________ _________________________________
17. _____________________________ __________________________________ _________________________________
18. _____________________________ __________________________________ _________________________________
19. _____________________________ __________________________________ _________________________________
20. _____________________________ __________________________________ _________________________________
21. _____________________________ __________________________________ _________________________________
22. _____________________________ __________________________________ _________________________________
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24. _____________________________ __________________________________ _________________________________
25. _____________________________ __________________________________ _________________________________
26. _____________________________ __________________________________ _________________________________
27. _____________________________ __________________________________ _________________________________
28. _____________________________ __________________________________ _________________________________
29. _____________________________ __________________________________ _________________________________
30. _____________________________ __________________________________ _________________________________
This is a petition to my Member of Parliament, Pierre Poilievre, to ask that our law-makers pass federal laws strenghtening protection of the most fundamental of all of our civil liberties, the Freedom of Speech, from attacks from all directions, so that Canadians within all of Canada would have equal protections under the law for our mos fundamental freedom.
SIGNATURE NAME (Please Print) City, Postal Code
31. _____________________________ __________________________________ _________________________________
32. _____________________________ __________________________________ _________________________________
33. _____________________________ __________________________________ _________________________________
34. _____________________________ __________________________________ _________________________________
35. _____________________________ __________________________________ _________________________________
36. _____________________________ __________________________________ _________________________________
37. _____________________________ __________________________________ _________________________________
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39. _____________________________ __________________________________ _________________________________
40. _____________________________ __________________________________ _________________________________
41. _____________________________ __________________________________ _________________________________
42. _____________________________ __________________________________ _________________________________
43. _____________________________ __________________________________ _________________________________
44. _____________________________ __________________________________ _________________________________
45. _____________________________ __________________________________ _________________________________
This is a petition to my Member of Parliament, Pierre Poilievre, to ask that our law-makers pass federal laws strenghtening protection of the most fundamental of all of our civil liberties, the Freedom of Speech, from attacks from all directions, so that Canadians within all of Canada would have equal protections under the law for our mos fundamental freedom.
SIGNATURE NAME (Please Print) City, Postal Code
46. _____________________________ __________________________________ _________________________________
47. _____________________________ __________________________________ _________________________________
48. _____________________________ __________________________________ _________________________________
49. _____________________________ __________________________________ _________________________________
50. _____________________________ __________________________________ _________________________________
51. _____________________________ __________________________________ _________________________________
52. _____________________________ __________________________________ _________________________________
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58. _____________________________ __________________________________ _________________________________
59. _____________________________ __________________________________ _________________________________
60. _____________________________ __________________________________ _________________________________
If you would like to receive these files as an attachment to an email, where the formatting is properly done up, please, drop me a line in the comments and I will be happy to send it to you.
The Mises View: “Government Debt Addiction” | Judge Andrew P. Napolitano
October 23, 2013 — xanthippa
Catching up….some post-migraine rantings
October 22, 2013 — xanthippaDon’t you just love migraines?
Not only do they incapacitate one for days, for even more days afterwards, my brain refuses to function on anything more than 20% of my cognitive capacity… So, no reasoning, very little reading (that still hurts) and just a lot of listening to TV shows and videos.
Listening to a bit of the radio, the lunacy and unimaginable disconnect between the Ottawa city government and, well, reality, reared its ugly head up again. And, yes, it was again regarding the cursed ‘O-Train’.
This time, it is not the tunnel under the downtown, to be dug in ‘loose shale’ (but will, in no way, undermine the integrity of the foundations of the really tall buildings right above), nor will it have anything to do with the disruption of the geological station placed in ‘isolated’ area of the Greenbelt, which is being used to calibrate all the other geological stations in remote ares (and, yes, I helped develop their data acquisition/calibration system for them back when I was working in the science field – did you know that scientists pack water bags around their equipment in the Arctic so they can collect data for longer before the instruments/laptop freeze? Sorry, I’m rambling…) and that is being threatened because the idiotically planned O’choochoo will run right by it.
Nor is it attempting to run the ‘western’ portion of the O-choo-choo line on parkway land along the Ottawa river – and thus effectively halving the accessibility to it as potential riders would live south of the line and only fish north of it…
No, this time it’s the airport.
It seems that, in its wisdom, the city planners have not only failed to take into account the Convention Center near the airport (and the major cause of traffic jams in the area) and ignored it completely, they have charted the O’choo-choo tracks to run over a bit of land that the airport people own and have, on a few occasions, told the Ottawa people they plan to build a runway on.
How do I get off this planet?
And while I’m ranting on my municipal government…
OK, another bicyclist got killed on out streets. This time, Hunt Club Road.
What is unusual about this one, the bicyclist was traveling in the bicycle lane, not making any turns, and in the same direction as an 18-wheeler truck that did not even know it struck anything…
The fault for this one lies squarely with the City of Ottawa!
Why?
It has an insane obsession with making people bike on roads not designed to accommodate bicycles.
There used to be a law on our books, prior to amalgamation, that stated that if a bike path exists between two spots, a bicyclist must use the bike paths instead of public roads to get from one point to the other. After amalgamation, this rule has not been enforced at all, so I am not sure if it still exists. Indeed, one can drive on a road which is flanked by a bicycle path which is separated by about 1 to 1.5 meter grass buffer from the road – and encounter bicyclists on the road, blatantly ignoring the bike path.
But, this particular fatality is significant.
It happened on a road that is a major thoroughfare with a high speed limit. Hunt Club used to be a generous 2 lanes in each direction road.
Then, the bicycling fetish took root with our elected classes and the right lane of this road – generous, true, but not overly so – got narrowed by having a bicycle lane painted onto the right part of it. Now, it is a road that has a generous left lane, a very narrow right lane and an in-your-face, unprotected bicycle lane.
The right lane might be able to accommodate ‘smart’ cars comfortably, but it is by far too narrow to accommodate 18-wheelers…
And that is why I blame the City of Ottawa for this particular death!
Just because you WANT something does not make it SO! You know, like making a road physically wider and safe for bikes without actually, you know, widening the road.
Putting ideology over reality will have real-life consequences – and, in this case, deadly consequences…
Or, there is this story out of Saudi Arabia: a man is sentenced to beheading for ‘crying at a cemetery’. It happens to be the cemetery where Muhammad is supposedly buried and crying at his tomb, apparently, constitutes adolatry, which is a capital offense in Saudi Arabia.
And the braves of Hezbollah successfully identified and killed a filthy Jewish spy: yes, yet another endangered-species bird. Those guys as SOOO brave and clever!
Of course, we all ‘know’ that ‘human rights’ is a gay plot to destroy Islam…my headache is coming back…quick, somebody, pull my teeth out!
And if you have been suspecting that there is a reason why the mainstream media is not telling you the story, the whole story, about world news, you may be gratified to know that a respected journalist has blown the whistle on CNN and revealed that it takes money to not report some stories and to put a positive narrative onto others.
Since I was not really up to reading much, my hubby (I won the spouse lottery – he is the perfectest hubby ever!) has been entertaining me by showing me the original 1978 Battlestar Gallactica TV series.
I LOVE it!
Not only is it totally pro-free-speech and anti-oppression, it shows the fallacy of ‘peace in our lifetime’ of appeasing bullies… OK, I’m not too far into it (I kept falling asleep from the meds), but, it is so much better than the remake which was stripped of the principles that are core to defining the character’s actions…
Then, of course, there are all the videos I’ve watched (or, rather, listened to, over the last few days)…some of which are interesting, very interesting (and not all are political – some are just fun….it’s quite a mishmash!
Let me put some up:
Pat Condell: There’s no racist like a liberal racist
October 18, 2013 — xanthippa
Just to underline just how correct Pat Condell is in his assessment of ‘Progressives’ – one just recently published a study describing just how racist the Israeli Defense Forces were.
The hypothesis went something like this: IDF soldiers are racist against Palestinians and show their contempt by raping Palestinian women.
Then, there was much going about and collecting evidence to support this hypothesis: except there was one slight problem….the Pallywood propaganda about IDF soldiers frequently raping Palestinian women was eactly that – propaganda, with no factual basis.
But – the ‘study’ was underway? How is a ‘Progressive Intellectual’ to salvage this situation?
The answer is really quite clear, isn’t it: RACISM!!!!
That’s right – racism.
The IDF soldiers are SOOOOOOO ‘racist’, they consider Palestinian women SOOOOOO ‘below’ them, they won’t even stoop to raping them!!!
Xanthippa's Chamberpot 